Tonight’s guest is Guy McLendon. His current titles include: Member of LP National Committee [specifically Region 1 Alternate], Member of Texas State Executive Committee, Immediate Past Chair of Harris County LP [Houston, Texas]. Past titles: former Vice Chair of Texas LP. Served 3 terms on LP National Platform Committee. Served 6 years as County Chair in Houston, TX metro area.

Rick Santorum dropped his presidential run due to a family illness. His daughter came down sick again, and he is leaving the hectic schedule of campaigning to tend to his family. God bless his daughter and his family in this time.

In other news, the Secret Service is under fire for visiting a brothel in Columbia, which is legal there, but they had some argument about the bill, and it created a scandal that is hitting the news.

Also this past week, another female Democrat Strategist, Hilary Rosen, did a pretty good job of angering every stay-at-home mom in the country with her comments belittling Ann Romney’s opinion about economics on the grounds that she “hasn’t worked a day in her life.”

CLIP 1: The shortsightedness of Rosen:

She claims there is no “War on Women,” and we need to quit using that term, because Obama doesn’t use it. Never mind that she and other Democrat Strategists, like Whatsername Schultz, are running around the talk circuits claiming Romney is old fashioned and doesn’t connect with women. In this interview, Rosen begins by saying Romney is right, that women care about economic issues right now, but he just doesn’t “connect on the issue.” Think about what she’s saying: Romney’s right, and women care about economic issues, but he’s wrong because he consults his wife, who’s never worked a day in her life.

Now, I’m not even going to address the battle between working women and stay-at-home moms. All I’m going to say is, as a stay-at-home mom who can no longer afford to stay home as a direct result of this economy, I can tell Ms. Rosen that I care about economics. I can tell her that I grocery shop, and I buy gas, and thanks to crappy Democrat economic policies, I’m back in the job market – a crappy job market fostered by Democrat policies of the past six years. They have destroyed my family lifestyle with such crappy policies, and I know better than any working man who never goes grocery shopping how much this administration is lying to us about inflation.

It was an offensive, foolish thing for Rosen to say. She agreed with Romney about the issues, claimed there is no war on women, then proceeded to shout the battle cry of dividing women from voting Republican. Just because Hilary Rosen says they aren’t touting a Republican war on women, obviously doesn’t mean it’s true, because Democrats are still playing the game, they are just no longer labeling it “The War on Women.”

Within a day of Rosen’s criticisms, it gets heated, Ann Romney-Hilary Rosen have a Twitter war, Rosen apologizes for her statements, sort of, Democrats distance themselves from her, and Rosen gets a full 15 minutes on Wolf Blitzer to say “Sorry I offended you.”

It’s not about me, Rosen says. It’s not about women. It’s about Romney and what he does for women specifically. Now, personally I believe that if you fix the economy for all Americans, you will help working women and stay-at-home moms both. But if you are looking for special handouts for special groups of people, then you are part of our problem in this country. You aren’t providing any solutions, you aren’t holding Obama accountable for anything, but you are hypocritically making an issue out of something that has nothing to do with the economy.

I’m a woman, but I am an American first. Don’t give me your crap about how this isn’t about women and then turn around and contradict yourself by making it about women. This election is not about women. This election is about Americans, and as a woman, I don’t appreciate her deflection from the issues of this economy, let alone the insulting way she belittled Ann Romney.

CLIP 3: 5:25 to 6:15

What she meant was, Romney is “using his own wife” and what is he gonna do for women? Not what is Romney going to do for America or the economy or business, but how is he going to purchase women voters? Ms. Rosen, I can’t be bought by your little payouts. If you can’t make an argument to deal with the issues of Americans in general, then there isn’t much you can do for me, alone, as a woman, that will fix our economy.

Rosen said:

“We are all sort of falling victim to this amazing crashing political machine in this campaign to move away from the real issues. Which as I see it… is does Mitt Romney really understand the struggles of women economically.”

CLIP 4: 7:10 to 7:31

How dare Mitt Romney consult his own wife, a wealthy woman, about women’s issues? We all know wealthy women aren’t REAL women, don’t we? Starting women bickering wasn’t good enough, so let’s throw some class warfare in here too and negate anyone’s opinion who ever stayed home with their children or had the nerve to be able to afford to do it?

“This is not about stay-at-home moms versus working moms. I think your husband needs to stand up for women’s economic struggles, and so far we have not seen how he is going to do that on the campaign trail. This hasn’t come out of his mouth, and maybe it will at some point. But this is a distraction that his campaign is forcing on the American people to avoid his record on the issues.”

Which issues? The one Hilary Rosen is trying to create by opining that Romney is old-fashioned when it comes to women. Hilary Rosen spews on the air last week attacking Romney’s wife, then has the gargantuan balls to tell us that Romney is the one distracting the American people from the issues! Talk about projection! She avoids real economic issues by fabricating an issue against women and rich people where there really isn’t one, and proceeds to offend every woman who ever chose to stay home and raise her own kids — then she has the nerve to claim Romney is the one distracting us from the issues??

This is the tactic, America, pay attention! This chick was attempting pure political manipulation of women, trying to get you angry and riled up at a candidate for her own political purposes that have nothing to do with women. This Hilary Rosen shouldn’t have even had the first two minutes on air to make her ridiculous claims, much less be given 15 minutes to clarify her political game.

A week ago Saturday (April 7, 2012), my senior staffer and I trekked to Fort Worth to attend the Libertarian Party presidential debate. It dawned on me, as we watched all six candidates agree with each other for a couple of hours, how our personal platforms within the Republican Party can vary a great deal between social issues, economic solutions, and foreign affairs. (We’re not nearly as at odds ideologically within the Republican Party as factions of the Democrat Party are).

First, we’re not all conservative in the Republican Party, but on top of that we are also different kinds of conservatives. We have fiscal conservatives who are liberal on social issues and fiscal statists who are conservative on social issues. I never really thought about how much we differ under the Republican umbrella until I hit this Libertarian debate. Considering it was a debate, there was very little disagreement among the Libertarian Party candidates; they may have different levels of focus or priorities within their own platform, but all of the candidates’ beliefs and proposals fell within the bounds of Libertarianism.

It was a little disturbing to realize how much division we really have within the Republican Party. We have Republicans who deviate from the party platform in all kinds of ways. We don’t necessarily know just by that R behind their name on the ballot that we’re going to get a candidate who is fiscally conservative…. Or pro-life… or wherever your political focus is within the platform.

Then, as an excellent basis for comparison to the Libertarian debate, on Wednesday (April 11, 2012) my senior staffer and I made our way back to Fort Worth to attend Ron Paul’s rally. At the debate, we had picked up some of their literature, and my daughter got hold of this little postcard-sized brochure that outlines the differences between the Right, the Left, and Libertarians.

She showed it to her high school and college friends over the last week and was very surprised how many of her friends had no idea what a Libertarian was. The general consensus was that Libertarian is synonymous with Liberal. This misconception just isn’t true. There are Liberal Libertarians, however, just like there are Liberal Republicans and Conservative Democrats, Libertarian does not automatically mean Liberal, and neither does it necessarily mean the Libertarian Party.

What I find the more I read about the ideologies is that libertarian ideals exist across all party lines. Since constitutionalism is easy to agree with, both Democrats and Republicans can fit libertarianism into their own ideologies to some degree. The Democrat Party uses libertarian ideology mostly for social issues — to stand for freedom of speech and choice, to defend things like unregulated porn, burning flags, woman’s right to abortion, gay marriage, legalizing drugs. The Republican Party uses libertarian ideology mostly in economic issues, touting free market solutions, but also in things like their defense of the right to bear arms.

Think about what Libertarianism is. It is an ideology that is centered on constitutionalism and personal liberty, putting it at direct odds with Statism, which also exists in both parties. Libertarianism is limited government and freedom. Statism is about centralizing government power and control. Republican and Libertarian are not opposites. Libertarian and Statist are opposites. Since the Democrat Party platform is Statist, with its social justice and Marxist principles, they are much more at odds with libertarianism than Republicans are.

The social issues that both Democrats and Republicans often argue with each other about are easily solved with a Constitutional libertarian approach. If we restore the separation of powers between the state and federal governments, then none of these social issues are even factors at the national level. If you cut the federal government back down to its enumerated powers and give all the usurped power back to the states (where our individual votes have a much greater impact on our representation), then federal government politicians would have no reason to even debate about social issues like gay marriage, legalizing drugs, or abortion. Those would all be state issues that are irrelevant to our representatives within the federal government.

States rights are within the realm of the Republican Party as well as libertarianism. It is such a dangerous concept to the left, these states rights, that they even made up a new name to vilify the movement towards them. We’re now called Tenthers, because we believe in restoring the Tenth Amendment. Like how they gave us a kooky conspiracy theory name that brings visions of Truthers and Birthers? That’s very deliberate. There is nothing conspiracy about supporting the 10th Amendment. It is Libertarian, it is Conservative, and it is constitutional.

Now, I catch flack for this all the time by people who tell me that Conservative Libertarian is an oxymoron. It isn’t. There are Conservative libertarians. I know this, because by ideology, I have been one of them since before I could vote, back when I watched President Ronald Reagan inspire a nation with foundational truths that helped shape my political beliefs. Back then, we were Reagan Republicans. When I had the privilege of studying Reagan-appointed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in college, I learned that there was another name for my Reagan Republicanism — Conservative libertarian.

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

Conservatives today and liberals of the revolutionary days are really both libertarians. Reagan continued and qualified what made him a Republican. Reagan said:

“Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path.”

I stand on that statement too. Would you think me radical if I said that Ronald Reagan was right? We all loved Reagan, right? The Republican Party website still stands on his policies when listing party beliefs. We tout his words in quotes and videos, and we still agree with him to this day. Obama twists the Reagan years and tries to equate himself with the Conservative president often.

Yet, today, libertarianism is a dividing point from Conservatives in the Republican Party. We have this shift where the mainstream criticism of the Republican Party is not just the unyielding Conservatives, but now it’s played off as we’re even more radical and dangerous than conservatives — the libertarians of the party. These are your Tea Party ideology, smaller, more efficient-government, free-market Republicans touting constitutional principles. Those crazy Tea Party Terrorists, those Hobbits.

Think about all the people who vilified that smaller-government, pro-constitution, lower taxes movement. Radical left-wing Marxists pushing social justice in a Utopia of their own minds where they are The Mainstream and money grows on trees. Joe Biden called us terrorists for subverting his party’s moves towards economic collapse because we dared to demand cuts in a $2 trillion annual deficit. Who derides us as Hobbits? John McCain, a moderate Republican Statist who grows government through his infamous compromises. Libertarian ideology is dangerous to a Statist like Sauron, er, rather John McCain. [It’s not relevant, but I still think it’s amusing that McCain called us Hobbits, considering that against all odds, the Hobbits saved middle earth.]

I have been witness to, and a part of, all kinds of arguments between Republican voters regarding the ideology of libertarianism in recent months. For the past year, since this election cycle really got started, there has been a blogging war between Ron Paul supporters and Ron Paul haters, most of which are Republicans arguing with Republicans, flinging accusations of “Paulbots” and “Neocons,” snide comments and insults, and my only message in any of these arguments is: Tone it down and stop attacking each other. Stop dividing us and chasing people away from the Republican Party by being rude – especially to those people who we mostly agree with! We need every vote possible to get rid of this administration. We agree on far too many things to not be able to discuss issues without giving each other attitude.

We have enough to deal with just trying to restore a sustainable budget to this country, let alone restore constitutional powers, and name-calling is always unproductive. In requesting civility among Republicans, I have been called a Liberal, a conspiracy theorist, a Truther, anti-American, and this is the one that gets me: I’ve been told I’m not a Republican.

I take exception to that last accusation. I suppose I need to introduce myself to the Republican Party. Apparently, they never met me, even though I am a lifelong Republican. They have been able to depend on my votes in every election since the first time I voted 20 years ago. They have had to do nothing to win my votes except show up on the ballots. However, I’m tired of voting for people that I did not pick, so when I show up to Republican precinct meetings, I better not one time hear how I’m some kind of Ron-Paulbot Democrat trying to “take over” the Republican Party. I am the Republican Party, and I have always been.

I haven’t had my primary yet here in Texas, but when it comes on May 29, I’ll be voting for Ron Paul. It will be refreshing to vote for once without having to hold my nose and feel like I’m undermining my country with my vote. Then, in November, I’ll hold my nose, as usual, and vote for the Establishment-endorsed puppet, because the most important thing to me is unifying to oust Obama. If I have to vote for Romney, I’m not too worried about it. I always knew battling the media made Ron Paul a long-shot to win the nomination. And that’s fine. I never expect Republicans as a Party institution to offer me a presidential candidate that I agree with about everything. We’re just too diverse within our party for that. What really matters to me this election — where my hope truly lies — is that the Republicans will take the Senate and put a stop to this economic and bureaucratic nightmare.

I’ve been pretty disappointed in the way we Republicans have been handling this election. I don’t think you have to be a Ron Paul supporter to see that the media has ignored him. It ended up on political comedy shows, it was so laughable how blatantly they ignored him.

Except when they portray him as an isolationist kook — which I think we should expect that from the leftwing media, (because they think they are in the center by touting Socialist policies, so the idea of cutting spending to them is just extreme) but what has surprised me is how many Republicans and Conservatives have taken that media line and run with it without even researching.

I can’t count the many times I’ve seen some network news show take two sentences out of context from Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Herman Cain, only to research it and find the statement was nothing like it was presented. I know I’m not alone in this recognition, because I see your posts on Facebook, you political junkies. You know what the media does. So, why would you accept the same out-of-context reports of Ron Paul without scrutinizing the context?

I’m so shocked at the open hostility between Republicans regarding Ron Paul. Both sides are guilty, they start arguing policy and when they come to an impasse over fine points, or someone gets their lunch et, it becomes – well you’re a neocon and you’re a Paulbot, and the discussion ends in an angry huff.

Personally I want the Ron Paul voters to vote for whoever our Republican candidate ends up being, whether Paul is the candidate or not. I don’t want us chasing our own voter base into a 3rd party – a third party will only divide Conservative and libertarian voters. Whether Republicans want to admit it or not, there are an awful lot of Republicans like me who you need in November. Do not disenfranchise us and chase us away. I remember Ross Perot, and that’s why I’m not going anywhere in November, but keep in mind, I have a longer political memory than most Americans, and if you make people mad enough with hateful spew, that’s what they’ll remember come November.

America, I don’t want to be an alarmist here, but we are in danger. Our Constitution has been trampled on by this president. I know, our constitution has been trampled on by both parties and every president since George Washington, but this president has given up any pretense of preserving the limits of constitutional powers.

We have an unaccountable federal bureaucracy that has taken on a will of its own, and it is all in violation of our constitutional state powers. The DOJ should not be suing states for preserving the integrity of our own elections with voter ID laws. The FDA and the USDA should not be raiding organic farmers with their own federal police force. The DOJ should not be raiding Gibson Guitars and seizing their property without due process. Regardless of what you think of marijuana legalization, the DEA should not be raiding state-licensed, legal marijuana growers. Constitutionally speaking, these things should not be happening. Yet they are. What are we worried about this election? Avoiding a candidate who might be considered “radical” to the radical leftwing media and Democrats? Are we buying that media spin?

I have a FB friend, he posts under the name Weary Eagle, and he made an excellent point: One definition of “radical” is “advocating thorough or complete political or social reform.”

I looked up the word to see what else it lists:

“1. a.) Of or from the root or roots; going to the foundation or source of something; fundamental; basic. b.) extreme; thorough 2. favoring fundamental or extreme change; specifically favoring basic change in the social or economic structure”

If we elected the most radical anarchist we could find for a president, he would still be unable to accomplish anything except maybe to pause the growth of the federal government. True reform of these backwards, power hungry federal agencies will take years to accomplish. That’s just how far we’ve come and how big it’s grown. So, what are we afraid of? We are at one extreme looking at crossing over into totalitarianism. A compromising moderate will not stop that crossover.

“Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, capitalism and freedom have been undermined by an explosion in the size and power of government: Total government spending has increased from 6.61 percent of GDP in 1907 to a projected 45.19 percent of GDP in 2009;2 the dollar has lost more than 95 percent of its value due to the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies; top marginal income tax rates have been as high as 94 percent; entitlement programs now constitute more than half of the federal budget; and businesses are hampered and hog-tied by more than eighty thousand pages of regulations in the Federal Register.”

“The Constitution established the political framework necessary for a free market. It provided for the protection of private property (the Fifth Amendment) including intellectual property (Article I, Section 8), the enforcement of private contracts (Article 1, Section 10), and the establishment of sound (gold or silver)3 money (Article I, Sections 8 and 10). It prohibited the states from erecting trade barriers (Article I, Section 9), thereby establishing the whole nation as one large free-trade zone. It permitted direct taxes such as the income tax only if apportioned among the states on the basis of population (Article 1, Sections 2 and 9), which made them very difficult to levy.4 Finally, it specificallyenumerated and therefore limited Congress’s powers (Article I, Section 8), severely constraining the government’s power to intervene in the marketplace.”

Ron Paul supporters get ignored at Athens County Georgia Republican Party delegate meeting, which went against Party rules. Georgia was won by Newt Gringrich, and from what I understand, Georgia election rules make it a winner-take-all-delegates state. So, Ron Paul voters really shouldn’t have too much to complain about if all the delegates go to Newt Gingrich.

The problem I see here is that a lot of these people who are showing up to the Republican primaries are getting involved in party politics for the first time in their lives. The last thing the party needs to be doing is ignoring their own rules in order to silence these people. Whether they agree about the candidate or the vote or not, they still need to respect their own party’s rules and hold whatever official proceedings they need to in order to preserve the integrity of our election process. All they’ve really accomplished by ignoring voter calls for a vote count is to disenfranchise new party blood. Republicans should not be disenfranchising anyone right now. We need their votes in the general election. Now is not the time to divide the Republican Party:

Afterthoughts: When I listened to the show, rather red-faced, I remembered the point I was trying to make when I lost my train of thought on air. Guy McLendon spoke of the Libertarian platform to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. I was going to add that abolishing the Department of Education is also a Conservative stance, when my selective A.D.D. kicked in.